US varsity asks 25 Indian students to leave campus for ‘lack of academic quality’

In what appears to have yet again shaken the hyper-competitive education recruitment process, about 25 Indian students have been asked to leave a public-funded US university owing to their lack of academic quality as required by the university.

The students, who were part of the computer science programme at the Western Kentucky University, were asked to return to India or explore admission opportunities in other schools after their first semester as they did not meet the standards set by the University, reports the New York Times. The University is believed to have admitted these students through a recruitment drive with Global Tree Overseas Education Consultants, an international students’ recruitment company based in India.

James Gary, Chairman of Western Kentucky’s computer science program, was quoted saying to NYT that ‘almost 40’ of the Indian students did not meet their admission requirements, even though they were offered help by the university.

"If they come out of here without the ability to write programmes, that's embarrassing to my department," Gary further justified the decision of the University.

According to Aditya Sharma, Chairman of the Indian Student Association at the University, while some students are seeking admission at other US universities some others are being helped to downgrade to programmes which are less rigorous. However, students who are unable to explore both options will have to abandon their plans of studying in USA.

Around 60 students were recruited by the Western Kentucky University through Global Tree. The students were enrolled in January and many were engaged through a ‘spot admission’ campaign run by Global Tree which also offered tuition waivers to international students.

In a bid to avoid similar situations in the future, Western Kentucky University has overhauled its recruitment process in India. In its future drives, the university plans to not only cross check the advertisements but also send members of the Computer Science faculty to review prospective students.

However, the larger question here is that didn’t the university already review applications of the students? And if it did, how did almost one-third of the batch turn out to be not living up to its academic standards?

However, this is not the first time that the International students' recruitment process has landed US universities in hot water. Last year, two US universities-Silicon Valley in San Jose and Northwestern Polytechnic College in Fremont, California-set the alarm bells ringing when 14 Indian students enrolled with these institutes were deported from the country. However, in this case, it was the quality and validity of the institutions that was in question rather than that of the students.

India is one of the largest sources of international students in the world and attracts many US universities- private and public- looking to create a global campus by infusing more international students to their classrooms. With the number of international Indian students increasing by the year, the admission season witneses heavy competition among universities, especially from USA, to promote and register enrollments from Indian students. In fact, most of the universities engage in large scale recruitment drives across India. Since accessibility of students is an issue, many universities utilise the help of recruitment companies based in the country, who reach out to students mainly through agents, counsellors and advertisements on social media. Going further, many universities even send representaives to engage with prospective students through study fairs, both online and offline.